Missouri may have trouble peddling the Kenneth L. Lay Chair in International Economics.

While Kansas University sports fans are relishing their basketball team’s recent romp past Missouri, KU academics also are enjoying the discomfort some MU officials seem to be experiencing as a result of the recent Enron megacompany collapse.

Missouri reportedly has been trying for about two years to fill a new chair in its economics department. Reportedly, some good prospects have refused to accept the offer for such an “honor,” perhaps because they had some insider information much earlier than the rest of us.

The open MU position is called the “Kenneth L. Lay Chair in International Economics.” Lay is the Enron leader who is getting floods of condemnation for whatever role he had in the Enron disaster.

Kenneth Lay, the controversial former Enron chairman, is a Missouri native with a master’s degree from MU. He gave the school a lot of stock in recent years. Enron’s stock is worth pennies now rather than the $90 a share it once reached, but MU reportedly sold the stock some time ago.

Lay’s wife says the two of them are bankrupt and that they are suffering with everyone else, including a lot of workers and former workers who lost their life savings. There is evidence, however, that the Lays have a $10 million home in Houston and another somewhere else, and that they are not likely to wind up at a soup kitchen.

At any rate, the university in describing the Lay chair, says “candidates should have substantial scholarly achievements and a commitment to teaching excellence at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.” It says nothing about keeping track of a program of which one is in charge, looking into the cash drawer periodically to see how things are going or paying bills and meeting commitments to associates.

Will the Enron scandal lead MU to consider canceling the endowed chair? No, says Mike Podgursky, MU economics department chair. He thinks people are overreacting (tell that to pensioners depending on their Enron retirement plans to keep them afloat).

Adds Podgursky: “If you look at the world of philanthropy, at the giants of American industry on whose largess the academic world depends, there are a number of pretty sketchy characters. The jury is still out on Ken, who is a really nice guy.” Still begging the issue, Podgursky says Enron is much like Ford and other major companies. “Of course, they didn’t go bankrupt.” It is going to be mighty interesting to see how Missouri wiggles out of this corner. According to Podgursky, just about any set of ethics is suitable for a company as long as it doesn’t go broke.

Some gambling casinos and Mafia families with their ongoing profits should be ripe targets for Tiger fund-raising experts, right? And some of them seem to be such nice guys.